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Chelsea’s current owners deserve credit for self-reporting the years of financial chicanery which they discovered had taken place at the club between 2011 and 2018 under the aegis of the Roman Abramovich regime.
But let’s not pretend that the punishment meted out to the club by the Premier League on Monday, which includes a nine-month ban on academy signings and a suspended first-team transfer ban, is anything other than a tiny tap on the wrist of their wealth and their position among the elite.
A £10.75million fine may be a Premier League record but it means nothing in the context of the fabulous wealth of a club such as Chelsea. It is a drop in the ocean of their income and their earnings and their prestige. It is a pathetically lenient sanction.
Let’s face it, if he keeps going at his current rate, Chelsea centre half Wesley Fofana will have racked that much up in speeding tickets in a couple of years.
Chelsea’s sanction asks interesting questions about how much the passage of time should be allowed to wipe away transgressions in modern football. The period that has been scrutinised is long enough ago now to seem like ancient history to some followers of the game.
The Premier League are not following the principle that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children and nor does there seem to be any appetite for retrospective punishment.
Roman Abramovich celebrates Chelsea’s first Champions League triumph in 2012 – a year after the beginning of the financial chicanery which the club’s new owners later self-reported
Let’s not pretend that the punishment meted out to the club by the Premier League on Monday is anything other than a tiny tap on the wrist of their wealth and their position among the elite
That is in stark contrast to the speculation about what would happen to Manchester City should they be found guilty of the many charges levelled against them, and which they fiercely contest, concerning alleged transgressions over a similar period of time.
In the debate about that ongoing City case, there has been much talk of swingeing points deductions and asterisks being placed against title wins should the judgment go against the club. There has been no suggestion of that here in the Premier League’s ruling.
That may be because the Premier League have been keen to stress Chelsea would not have breached their financial rules during the applicable seasons, even if the £47m in secret payments to unlicensed agents and third parties had been registered.
That does not, however, answer the question of whether Chelsea would have been able to sign Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto’o, Willian, Ramires, David Luiz, Andre Schurrle and Nemanja Matic were it not for those illicit payments.
Those players, to varying degrees, were important to future successes.
Many opposing fans will feel that there should be asterisks placed next to Chelsea’s title wins in 2014-15, under Jose Mourinho, and 2016-17, under Antonio Conte, in the history books
The Premier League’s reasoning for Chelsea’s punishment does not account for whether they could have afforded to sign players such as Ramires (left) and David Luiz
Many opposing fans will feel that there should indeed be asterisks placed next to Chelsea’s title victories in 2014-15, under Jose Mourinho, and 2016-17, under Antonio Conte, in the history books and that the club have been let off very lightly for their previous transgressions.
The City case, which was heard by an independent commission, is still awaiting resolution and the reaction to Chelsea’s escape will act as a useful guide to the public mood for the Premier League as the deliberations over the City case continue.
Its judgment over Chelsea will add to the feeling that whatever the result of the City case, any punishment, should they be found guilty, is destined to be a fudge that would allow both the club and the league to claim it had been vindicated.
